


somewhere a long way from where we started

by plinys



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/F, FemTrope Bingo, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 06:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9808238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: “Carol, I’m coming back to Earth.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> "This is not a story, it's a road trip. Which, same difference. In a good one, the start is exciting, and the finish is satisfying, and we end up somewhere else. Somewhere a long way from where we started." - Alice Isn't Dead

They both need the distraction. 

A distraction from  _ space _ , from the first thing they ever fell in love with and the first thing that did them wrong. 

Carol proposed it before.

Casually mentioning, a car she has left in San Francisco, that if Uhura ever needs a break she’s there, the offer is on the table. At the time she mentions it, Uhura doesn’t take her up on the offer. The Enterprise is being rebuilt and there’s just too much to do. 

Then Uhura’s gone and Carol’s working on Genesis and it’s just forgotten. 

Carol tries to reassure herself that it’s better this way. What did she really imagine would happen? 

A road trip, in this day and age. 

When there were trains and transports that could take you wherever you wanted to go in a blink of an eye. It was an outdated concept, one she forgot about the more she got into her research. 

Genesis was more important than any romantic notions of the past.

Genesis was more important than traveling on board the Enterprise.

Genesis was more important than -

  
  
  


“Carol.”

Uhura calls her.

Voice strained, eyes rimmed with just the hint of red. She had never seen Uhura like this, not except for when their Captain had died, seeing her now this way - breaks something inside of Carol. There’s a cruel injustice in the galaxy if Uhura is falling apart.

She’s the strongest woman Carol knows.

“Carol, I’m coming back to Earth.”

There’s too many questions Carol could ask. 

How?

When?

Why?

What happened?

She says none of these things, just nods once and then once more. 

“My guest room is always open.” 

“Actually, I was wondering… If you still had that car?”

She’s deep in Genesis, a break now would be inadvisable, but as the senior officer on the project… It wouldn’t be entirely unacceptable. 

“I’d love that.”

It’s not a lie, not really, it’s just -

  
  
  


There’s something about driving. 

An antiquated art. 

One that Carol had almost forgotten about, so caught in her labs, in her sorrows, in Starfleet. She tries to suppress the memory of first learning how to drive, her father sitting in the passenger seat telling her that she might need this one day.

At the time Carol couldn’t imagine ever needing it. 

She’d laughed it off, took it as a family bonding experience and never considered - 

It’s easier to avoid those memories with Uhura beside her.

Turning the antiquated radio dials to find something out there on the right frequency. 

Not unlike she would do on the Enterprise. 

Carol’s hand leaves the wheel for a second to brush against Uhura’s to still her fingers from the constant turning of the dials. 

There’s some song on the radio now, a classical song that Carol doesn’t recognize. But she can’t take the shifts and changes, the cut off words, the static anymore. 

Maybe Uhura can sense that because even she pulls back her hand, fingers brushing against Carol’s for a moment too long. 

Carol chases the feeling, fingers circling one another and - 

  
  
  


They don’t have a destination.

Not technically.

Just a distance between where they were and where they want to be.

Away.

Neither of them are much of navigators. 

Uhura drives sometimes. Carol curled up in the passenger seat. Her feet tucked underneath her, her hair blowing in the wind from the open window. 

“Tell me about space,” she says, the radio stuck on a static station again. 

She watches as Uhura’s hands flutter against the steering wheel.

“I want to forget about space.”

Carol gets that. She does.

It was why she took the research position instead of getting back on the ship. 

So she doesn’t push, the point, doesn’t ask about the friends she left behind on the Enterprise.

Instead she just speaks again, “They’re thinking of sending me back out there. An outpost near a potential Genesis planet.” 

“That’s good?” Uhura says it like a question.

It is a question.

One Carol has been asking herself for too long. 

“I think so.”

She’s not sure if it’s- 

  
  
  


They drive through the first night without any issues. 

The second night they get a hotel, paid for on Starfleet’s dime.

Shore leave. 

A mental health trip. 

They share a small bed with city lights streaming in from the window.

Carol rolls closer to Uhura in the darkness, not just for warmth but because -

  
  
  


“Stop the car.” 

She slams on the breaks in the middle of an empty highway, nothing but fields stretching around them for miles, but Uhura said to stop the car and so she did. 

Without any hesitation.

Uhura is out of the car before Carol can even register what is happening, moving out into the cornfield beside them. 

She should follow her, should investigate, but something keeps Carol trapped in the car.

Her fingers drum against the steering wheel.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

“Fuck it.” 

The seatbelt sticks and she -

  
  
  


There’s tears on her cheeks, and she’s not sure why she’s crying.

Not entirely sure.

There’s a part of her that knows.

A part of her that’s never mourned properly. 

Uhura’s fingers are laced in hers, her voice quiet and low, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

It’s not okay. 

She can’t get back in the car, she can’t imagine - 

  
  
  


This was a terrible idea.

Road trips were best left in the past, best left for those who had enjoyed the world hundreds of years ago. 

Maybe society had moved past the idea of crossing the great divide in nothing but a car, no end in sight.

Maybe the world just wasn’t ready for it yet.

Maybe Carol just couldn’t - 

  
  
  


Uhura kisses her.

On a Tuesday.

In a city Carol doesn’t even know the name of. 

Leaning across the front seat of the car.

And finally Carol remembers how to breathe. 


End file.
